Clothing and Public Appearances

In thinking about this subject I have to immediately let you know that I am not in any way versed on matters of clothing of the First Ladies except in the political symbolism and the socioeconomic status they may represent in terms of currency and cost. I think your work on Edith Wilson especially merits study, however, because she was one of those who spent an inordinate amount of energy on her clothes, particularly, and public appearances generally. Apart from a vanity that seems apparent from not only her private letters but in her public memoir, I believe she very much equated the role of First Lady at the time of her tenure as did many of the Washington elite and general population: a form of Yankee royalty. Certainly the effort she made in her public appearances in Europe with the royal family members of England, Italy and Belgium suggest a hyper-consciousness about maintaining this status and keeping it on par with the Europeans: in that instance, I don't believe it was purely a motivation of personal vanity but a patriotic sense of truly embodying her own nation and asserting that the United States was on equal status with the powers of the old world. That very first trip by an incumbent President and his wife to Europe at the end of World War I was an important one in terms of policy as well as symbolism. It was the first time that Europeans gave sustained and serious attention through their media on Americans, generally, and the President, particularly.

As far as the notion of her developing a sort of "power suit," I am more hesitant to affirm only because my understanding of that term applies to women in Washington who wield their own independent power more than that of derivative power through marriage - the First Lady, and spouses of the Vice President, Cabinet, Senate and House, Supreme Court and diplomatic corps excepted. Also my understanding of the term "power suit" derives from official life in Washington since the 1980's with figures like Nancy Reagan, Elizabeth Dole, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Lynne Cheney, Tipper Gore, Nancy Kassenbaum as examples. These women have had the dual need to present a traditionally feminine appearance with the flexibility of a packed day of meetings and often air and train and car travel - thus practicality. They began wearing increasingly shorter dresses and pants. In terms of style - and again, I am no expert at all, or even an astute observer.

I also know that Mrs. Truman was actually criticized for wearing no variations from her skirts in the mid-1940's that were measured a certain length from the floor with matching shorter-sleeved jackets in navy blue, grey and black only. Mamie Eisenhower wore the same suit style but in lighter colors. Jacqueline Kennedy updated this slightly with eye-popping monochromatic colors for the new technology of color television. Her famous pink suit worn when the president was assassinated is the most famous example of this. Tying this together, I know that Mrs. Reagan, and other women of power or married to powerful men in Washington of the 1980's, were shown to be wearing the same type of suit as Mrs. Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. So, with her skirts that never showed more than her ankles and, as you say "asymmetrical lines", Edith Wilson seems more of person who followed the current vogue of her era rather than set a tradition, consciously or unconsciously. Please take all of that with the over-riding fact that I am not in any way an expert on this aspect of First Ladies except as it turned up as a cultural statement for a particular era or, mostly, had a political impact or repercussion.